Impact Enablers

Network leads: David Earn, professor of Mathematics, McMaster University and Caroline Colijn professor of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University, Canada 150 Research Chair

Description: One of four national research networks in Canada, the Canadian Network for Modelling Infectious Disease (CANMOD), brings together statisticians, mathematicians, epidemiologists and public health experts to increase the country’s ability to track the spread of pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2, and inform short, medium and long-term public health decisions.

The researchers will study incidence, mortality, hospitalization, testing patterns, and genetic sequences, and will use mathematical models to assess and improve strategies for surveillance, vaccine distribution, control through non-pharmaceutical interventions, and epidemic forecasting.

CANMOD will bring together researchers from a variety of hospitals, public health agencies and many universities, including Yukon College and the Universities of Victoria, British Columbia, Alberta, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Guelph, Waterloo, Brock, Toronto, Ryerson, Ottawa, Queen’s, Laval, McGill, Memorial and Prince Edward Island.

Resources:

• Read: McMaster and SFU to lead national network for modelling infectious disease epidemics

Lead: Brian Lichty, director, Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Lab

Description: Opened in 2004, the Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Lab’s specialized equipment and pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity have made McMaster a Canadian leader in the development of immunotherapies, including life-saving vaccines to combat cancer and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, and in producing viral-vectored vaccines for human and animal clinical trials. It remains one of the few facilities of its kind in the country and was the first academic pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Canada to produce vaccines approved for use in human clinical trials by Health Canada.

Over the years it has enabled Canadian scientists to take their candidate immunotherapies into the clinic, while employing highly skilled staff and training the next generation of young scientists. It’s because of this trailblazing work that McMaster scientists working in the Fitzhenry vector lab were able to apply their experience and expertise to the development of two new second-generation COVID-19 vaccine candidates which are designed to provide broader immunity and help protect against emerging COVID-19 variants. Researchers in the Fitzhenry lab are currently manufacturing tens of thousands of doses of these vaccine candidates and hope to begin human trials this spring.

Resources

• Learn more about the Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Lab
• Article: McMaster researchers developing homegrown vaccines to fight COVID-19 and prevent future outbreaks using specialized campus lab and production facility
• Article: How McMaster’s inhaled COVID-19 vaccines would work
• Article: Upgrades to Fitzhenry Lab would enable ‘on the order of a million doses of a vaccine per production run,’ McMaster researcher says
• Article: McMaster researchers talk with MPs about made-in Canada vaccines

Leads: John Lavis, director of the McMaster Health Forum and Canada Research Chair in Evidence-Informed Health Systems, Jeremy Grimshaw, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Andrea Tricco of the SPOR Evidence Alliance, based at St. Michael’s Hospital of Unity Health Toronto, and Nancy Santesso, Cochrane Canada, based at McMaster University.

Description: One of four national research networks in Canada, the COVID-19 Evidence Network to support Decision-makers (COVID-END) brings together experts to collaborate and rapidly synthesize the best available evidence across the full breadth of Canada’s COVID-19 pandemic response.

By providing timely access to the latest research on public health measures, clinical management, health-system arrangements, and economic and social impacts, policymakers will better understand the impact that these measures have on Canadians’ health and safety.

The network builds on a year of experiences preparing COVID-19 rapid evidence profiles and on many years of experience with the McMaster Health Forum, SPOR Evidence Alliance and Cochrane Canada preparing rapid evidence syntheses.

The network maintains a publicly available inventory of the best evidence syntheses for COVID-19 decisions to ensure that Canadian decision-makers have the most updated science available when needed, and will establish a Canadian panel to complement its existing global horizon-scanning panel that monitors emerging issues where evidence syntheses are needed.

Sign up for the COVID-END semi-monthly newsletter to keep up with the latest evidence on some the most pressing issues facing policymakers.

Resources

• Learn more about the COVID-19 Evidence Network to support Decision-makers
• Article: McMaster receives $1M to lead COVID-19 evidence network
• Article: Improving policymaking with strong global partnerships and the best research evidence